"Closing Time" - a cabaret opera in one scene

Ten years and seemingly half a lifetime ago, I composed a tiny, one-scene opera on a libretto by Robert Kastenbaum called "Closing Time." Unrelated to the pop song, the Tom Waits album, or the Joseph Heller novel of the same name, our little opera was a 25-minute jazzy riff on the idea of two guys -- a bartender and his last customer of the night -- who meet and decide to commit double suicide.

The piece was staged in 1999 by Pima Opera in Tucson, Ariz., where it garnered an audience of, oh, 12 people. But we video-taped it, and now you can check it out at www.YouTube.com/composerlafave.

It's in three parts (YouTube doesn't allow videos loger than 10 minutes), the first of which has the following address:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PBK2gmdI6LA

Copy and paste that in your search engine and you'll get Part One. Parts Two and Three will be made available in the menu to the right. Don't be put off by the fact that the videographer used a wide angle for the first 4 minutes. After that, he starts to get close-ups, and the piece makes better sense.

The first thing you'll hear is a pop song on the bar's juke box -- well, Bob's and my idea of a pop song, anyway. Then the live singers take it up.